


Healer's Lifeline

by Beastrage



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Body Horror, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, On Hiatus, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-15 03:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17521589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beastrage/pseuds/Beastrage
Summary: Through kindness, a single soul can do a lot. Through healing, worlds can be revived. Lunafreya, last of the Oracles, face to face with the Accursed of the past, changes everything.





	1. when I let the water take me

**Author's Note:**

> All poorly translated Latin is being used as a fill-in for Old Solheim since I'm no Tolkien. At times, translations will be off due to the person translating them (Luna) not being entirely fluent in a dead language. This is part of the story, don't worry too much about the correct translations.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luna wakes up on a lonely, holy island. One problem with that: dead people aren’t supposed to wake up.

The last Oracle, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, wakes up with water in her lungs and blood dripping down her legs. 

She coughs and coughs and coughs. Hacking the water out. Trying to drag in the surrounding air into her lungs. Trying to breath again. 

Her body eventually gets the hang of it, falling back into familiar patterns.

She breathes.

She is alive. 

 

Her delicate white dress, unsurprisingly, is completely shredded.  As well as no longer white. Thick black mud covers her dress and her skin. Thin strips of filthy fabric stick themselves to her legs. Her stomach is clearly visible. So is the wound on it. 

Her skin is a disgusting mix of red and black. From the mud mixing with the blood that trickles down from the cut on her stomach, all the way onto her bare feet. 

A cut that once was serious enough to end her life. Now nothing more than the lightest of wounds, enough to bleed but not enough to kill. 

She is alive. 

 

Luna turns onto her side, onto her tender stomach. She winces, at the rough pebbles digging into the open wound, into her skin. 

Her hands dig into the rocky earth and push her up, so she can get a knee underneath her. To rise to her feet. 

The slick rocks underneath her feet scratch her soles, her toes. She doesn’t care.

She is alive. 

 

She is alive and she shouldn’t be.

Can’t be. 

Luna stands at the edge of the water, of the sea she can see as the entire horizon before her. The incoming waves come close to lapping at her feet but stop right before managing it. From her spot on the beach, Luna can see rocky walls curving upwards, reaching upwards toward the sky. 

A familiar place, a place that she’s only been to once before. 

Angelgard. 

The place where the gods first touched Eos. The oldest of legends say the earth below the sea had surged up to meet the oncoming gods, providing them a spot to rest from their weary work. Land first touched by gods and no mere mortal could be allowed to sully it. Sacred ground. 

 

Why is she here, of all places? Why not Altissia, where she...died. Luna shivers, turning her back on the sea. She’d rather not see it right now, thank you very much. 

Reminds her too much of the cold current that she fell into, the ocean surrounding Altissia. 

She looks up at the foreboding rocky center of Angelgard.

Though she’s been here before, she’s never gone there. No, she stayed on the beach. Touching the sacred earth only long enough to call on Ramuh before leaving to commune with the other Astrals. 

No ship to escort her off the island. There won’t be, not any time soon. Forbidden is the very least of the words she could use to describe access to Angelgard. No one goes there. No one will search for a dead Oracle on a lonely island, miles away from her last sighting. 

Luna could stay here on the beach. Under the grey, grey sky. Exposed to the slowly cooling air. To the storm that builds on the horizon.

Or...there’s a path. Well, not much of one. The remains of what could have been a path, leading to the mountainous center. 

Carefully, slowly, she picks her way from the shoreline up to the path. Up close, that path is full of sharp, sharp rocks. Hazardous to the bare footed soul. Or sole.

Luna smiles to herself. There’s been little to smile about, the last few weeks. A stupid punny joke shouldn’t be enough to bring a smile to her face, but it is. 

 

Painful, feeling the rocks scratch up her feet. She’s bleeding. Again. Luna breathes out. Breathes in. Keeps going, clambering over the small boulders barring the way. 

Til she reaches the mouth of a cave. 

Peering into it, the cave is dark. Very dark. She can’t see very far in there at all. No possible torches for her to light, even if she had a match to light them with. No lanterns, no light-bulbs, nothing but the dark. 

She breathes in, straightens her back, and steps into the darkness. 

 

There’s an old trick of hers, a trick she first figured out when her magic first manifested. A trick she hasn’t used for a long time, since there was really no need for it. A trick she could really use right now, surrounded by darkness. 

Luna snaps her fingers. Nothing. She does it again, focusing on bringing her tingling magic to her fingertips up through her wrist. 

This time, the magic runs eagerly to her fingers. Lighting up the darkness. A handy flashlight. 

The cave floor is wet, puddles forming from the water that drips from her dress hem. She places her feet carefully in attempts not to cut her soles open on rough rocks. Again. 

Blood on the ground. Her blood. Not a lot, but enough for her to notice if she examines the wet footsteps behind her closely enough. 

 

Several passages lay ahead. Each one a tunnel leading deeper into the dark, dark earth. None of them are marked noticeably. 

She heads for the middle one. For what reason? None, except that it’s the closest to her current position. 

Darker, yet darker. Deeper and deeper. Away from the howling wind she hears coming from the entrance. A storm is coming. A storm that could kill her (again) if she doesn’t get far enough away from the shoreline and the dangerous, poisonous ocean. 

 

Careful. Step by step, she makes her way. Into the depths, where the tunnel grows wider and more smooth. Cobblestones, under her feet. With a non-glowing hand, she feels the walls. Etched and carved with...something. Brightening her glow isn’t very difficult at all, so she does it. Enough to see that said etchings are carved pictures of the Astrals. Well, those are the biggest ones. Many smaller ones litter the background, tiny humans attempting to escape the rampaging of their gods. Either that or bow down to them in supplication for mercy. 

Her fingers trace an image of Shiva, arms spread out wide to welcome the masses kneeling to Her. Across the wall lies a picture of the same goddess, but with Her painted stone face enraged and ice flying out from Her fingertips. 

Bahumat, however, outnumbers the rest of the Six by a  _ lot  _ in the number of images displaying Him. The Draconian wages war with a thousand blades, breathes beams of light, and strikes dark enemies with His claws. 

There are many,  _ many _ dead people, in those particular scenes. 

 

Glancing just a little further down the wall lies a familiar face. Levithan, in all of her glory, bursting forth from the sea.  _ Cold water...can’t breath can’t breath... _ Luna quickly looks away again. Quickens her pace just a bit, to get out of this hallway of gods. 

 

Ahead, a doorway. Markings carved into its surrounding rock frame. Symbols formed into words in an old tongue that Luna only knows thanks to her training as the Oracle. 

“Protege nos a noctem. Protect...us...from...darkness?” She reads out loud. “What darkness?” 

Luna glances into the room, through the same doorway, holding up her glowing hand ever higher. 

Sees...chains. Chains everywhere. 


	2. been in the dark since the day we met

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luna finds an impossible someone in an impossible place . Trauma kicks and healer trainer kicks back.

Chains. Coming from every far-reaching dark corner. Up from the stone floor. Down from the rocky ceiling above. All meet in the center. 

The center, where there is a man. 

Luna raises her hand, the light in her hand. Her footsteps silent on the cold stone underneath, she walks towards that same center. To the man. 

Something is wrong about all of this. Why is there a man, trapped in chains like this? On an island where the living are forbidden to tread?

Did the people who imprisoned this man leave him to die? How long has this man been here? Is he in the process of rotting away, right at this very moment? 

Luna draws close, close enough to see the man clearly with the light in hand. 

 

She sees his hair first, on that bowed head. A familiar purple-red.  _ A hit across her face, a knife inserted into her gut. She hears Noctis cry out, but that’s impossible, surely, he’s so far away. Everything is so far away.  _ Her hand jerks and the light goes out. 

She tries to spark the light once more, to bring back the gentle glow, but every attempt to bring back her magic fails. She feels empty, cold, in the space where her magic should be. 

Luna is alone in the dark. With the Accursed. 

 

She is an idiot. A fool. Certainly careless, at the very least. She had known that the most of terrible of criminals had been imprisoned on Angelgard before. Awaiting Ramuh’s judgement, so it as said. Who else would be held on Angelgard, but the Accursed himself, at this point in time? Had Shiva Herself not told her of the Prophecy and the subjects of that same Prophecy? 

 

But...he shouldn’t be here. Much like how she shouldn’t be here. 

Last she saw of him was... _ a knife shoved into her. She gasps, more out of the shock than actual pain. The pain comes later, after he retrieves his knife and leaves her there.  _

_ Right now, the curious numbness that has gradually filled up her limbs over the weeks prevents her from feeling much of anything.  _

_ The Accursed removes the blade with surgical precision. Lets her flop over onto the wet pavement. And walks off, not looking back once.   _

He had stabbed her. Why is he chained up in Angelgard, instead of ushering in the Forever Night? Something, her heart tells her, has gone very very wrong. 

 

She tries, once more, to flick her fingers. Light, at last, returns. Weak and wavering, but there. Enough to see the chains again, and the man they hold in place. 

Luna chews at her tongue, examining the chains everywhere. Her fingers reach up, with the lightest of touches, to feel the cold metal. Despite her caution, the chain moves anyway under her fingers. Wiggling its way to its target, still in the center. Hooked into his chest. The other chains go through his shoulders, his hands.

A groan. A weak, weak groan. 

She snatches back her hand, like the metal has burned her. 

 

How can she get him out of here?

No one deserves this. 

Even if...even if...her chest shudders as she heaves in a deep breath, lungs feeling uncomfortably tight. 

“You killed me.” The words come out hoarse. She’s not spoken for some time and it’s easy to tell from her cracking dry voice. 

“I died.” She’s shaking, Luna faintly realizes. Like she’s not the one in charge of this body at the moment. 

Her perfect control, shattered. 

“I shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be here. Why are we here?”

He, of course, doesn’t answer her. Probably can’t even hear her, in the state he’s in. 

“This is wrong.” What kind of people would do this, would punish a man like this? Punish him with the knowledge he wouldn’t be able to die to escape but would instead be trapped there forever. Trapping in agony. 

“No wonder you hated us, if this is what your people did to you,” Luna murmurs, stepping closer. Holding her hand up, the wavering light coming from it barely bright enough to reflect off dull chains.  

Closer, closer. She moves in close enough that if the Accursed’s arms were free, he could reach out and touch her. Her fingers close around the nearest chain. Pulls, the slightest of tugs. 

A low groan. 

Luna starts, nearly jumping out of her own skin. Her hand jerks back. But slowly, she reaches out again. This time with both hands. Carefully feels down the chain links, until her fingers touch where the ice-cold metal meets just as cold flesh. She pulls. Slowly. As slow as a snail in her garden. 

Ignores with all her heart the painful-sounding groans, the steady shivering, and the tar-like blood dripping down that pale skin onto the stone floor. 

Plop! Out comes a hook. 

Luna pulls back to shake out the numbness in her glowing hands. Looks at the the chains still arching overhead. Sighs.

Only five more to go. 

She eyes the black goo spread onto the floor. Scourge, if she’s not mistaken (which she isn’t). The disease, the parasite spreads from blood-to-blood contact, in the most cases. Some victims she’s cured have been infected through saliva from a daemon or a daemonic magical blast. 

Too flexible for a disease. But then, that’s what the dark magic is for, isn’t it? To spread the Scourge fast enough to consume Eos and doom it to everlasting darkness. 

A bit dangerous, to be plucking gore-covered chains without some protection. But Luna has always been...daring, for an Oracle. Or so Gentiana claimed. However, daring doesn’t mean stupid. Not for Luna, anyway. The healing magic she’s using to light her way should fend off the Scourge well enough. She reaches for her next target.

 

After five more painful plops and yet more black blood all over the stone floor, only the chains holding the Accursed by the wrists remain. But not. A closer examination reveals the truth. Those chains bind not his wrists but instead run through the palms of his hands. Holding him up by digging holes into flesh, like all of the other chains she had removed. Her shoulders shake. Her hands quiver and just for a moment, flicker out. The light comes back but the moment still happened, nonetheless. 

She steels herself. Grabs the chain and  _ pulls.  _ The man caught in the web of steel  _ screams.  _ It’s more of a daemonic howl than anything truly human. A reminder of exactly who she’s freeing.

Luna pauses. Should she still try it? If she left him here, so much of the future could be prevented. The thought of just walking out, leaving him...

“No. I won’t do that,” she speaks aloud, to assure herself of her next action. “It probably won’t change anything, if I left. Maybe he’ll kill me, once I free him.” 

Letting loose an ancient evil to commit dark acts long before its time...an evil who killed her, once. Is that really the right course of action?

Her hand rubs her stomach, over the wound that is no longer there. Feeling the caked blood peel under her nails. 

Luna is already dead. She is trapped, on an island where no one goes. What else is there, but this? Besides, the Accursed wouldn’t be able to get off the island without outside help. Daemons  _ hate  _ salt water, with a fiery passion. Her freeing him would change no timeline at all, merely relief some suffering. Without food, without water, Luna will die. This way, it would be quick rather than slow. A final mercy.

Cheered by the thought, she yanks again. The links slice through the palms, almost ripping his hands in half. Black gore sprays across the room. 

He falls.

She falls to knees, next to him. Her hands filled with healing magic, Luan presses her palms on his bare chest. Attempting to close up the wounds littering his chest, his hands. Nothing happens. Her magic courses through him and nothing happens. 

What? She frowns, lifting her hands to check her handiwork. That’s when she sees them. 

 

Burns. In the shape of handprints. Right where Luna had just been attempting to heal him, on his bare chest. 

Her hands...she turns them over. Look as normal as ever, except where the healing energy still slightly glows, at her fingertips. Where the corresponding spots on his chest are the darkest, most severe. Burnt straight to the muscle. 

“No. No way.” 

_ The slightest of touches, on the Chancellor’s arm. Her magic reaches, healing and purifying the dark. But just as quickly as it starts, it stops. He snatches his arm away and next she knows is a hand hitting her across the face. With enough force behind the blow to knock her over.  _

She can’t heal him. Can’t heal the Accursed. Which, logically, makes sense. Stopping to think about it, the Prophecy would have never been necessary if the Oracle’s healing magicks were enough to cure the Accursed of the daemons he carried. 

No, instead she can only hurt him. 

What can she do now? 

 

Luna breathes out in mimicry of a sigh and reaches for what’s left of her dress’ hem. Rip. Rip. The cloth easily tears in her hands into thin strips. Makeshift bandages. 

First, his hands. His hands with holes through the palms. He’s not bleeding. The wounds, however, are still open. At second glance, those wounds appear to be scabbing over. Slow healing but still fast enough that the human eye can see the actual healing. The bandages really are useless in this case. 

 

She wraps his hands anyway. Pushing the flesh together, tying it together into some cohesive whole. Sometimes it’s the action that matters more than the end result. A healer does what they can but sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes Luna has come to heal the Scourge only to find a trail of bloody corpses instead and a newly formed daemon at that same trail’s end. 

Too little and too late. 

_ “You can’t save everyone, Oracle. Even the gods can’t save everyone.”  _

_ “I can try.”  _

_ “A healer’s arrogance. I would expect nothing else from the Oracle.”  _

Luna breathes in. Breathes out. And reaches for his wrist. 

His skin is cold to touch. Chilly and clammy like a corpse. An strange unnatural pulse in his wrist that pumps irregularly. His skin is thin. Delicate like the parchment of old scriptures, bruising easily into strange dark patches under a gentle pinch. Patches that easily fade away after a few seconds. 

Information that she has no idea how to read. Yet. 

 

The chill. Should she try warming him up somehow? Surely that might wake him up. But does she want him awake? He  _ hurt  _ her, to hurt Noct. 

Actions that haven’t happened yet. This man hasn’t destroyed anything yet, unless there’s a whole secret history she remains unaware of. 

Her hand reaches out once more. Slowly, to grasp his shoulder. 

Shake, shake, shake. The Accursed stirs, only to curl up on the floor. 

Luna lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Moves her legs from a kneeling position to a criss-cross underneath her bottom. She places her hands on her thighs. Waiting. Watching the man laying on the ground next to her. 

Waiting for him to wake up.

End this once and for all. 


	3. oh, the king gone mad with his suffering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Information about the Accursed is on a need-to-know basis. An Oracle doesn’t need-to-know, apparently.

Said man opens his eyes slowly. Luna almost flinches at the sight of that bright poisonous yellow. That yellow only the most severely infected Scourge victims get, mere hours before the final transformation. She stills herself only thanks to years of practice. 

“Aera?” falls from cracked lips. “ Quid hic agis?”

_ Why are you here? _

Oh, Luna would love to know the answer to that question. She rubs her tongue against the back of her teeth. Mentally searches her lexicon for a good answer to give the Accursed. One that won’t get her killed. 

“Nescio.” The simple truth.  _ I don’t know.  _

He blinks at her. Looks down, examines the bandages on his hands. Those same hands reach out to her. 

This time, she  _ really  _ can’t help it. She flinches. Scoots just a little bit more out of reach. 

In response, the Accursed also flinches. Puts his wrapped hands up placatingly. The universal gesture for See, they’re empty, I have no weapons. “Mea culpa.” 

An apology. Luna wracks her brain for the correct response. She is an Oracle, of course she has manners! “Mm, omnia bene erun?”

An eyebrow is raised in her direction. A silent  _ did you actually just say that?  _  Luna’s not sure she would have caught such a message had he spoken it out loud. She is just a tiny bit rusty, after all. 

Heat rushes to her cheeks. The Accursed...he laughs. Just once. “Ut eiusdem semper. Semper, Aera” 

Luna frowns at that. The same as ever? They’ve never met before now, not like this. Unless the Accursed also came back in time...but that would be silly. And who is this Aera person he keeps speaking of so fondly? 

The Accursed’s eyes look her up and down. They seem less yellow than before, closer to the amber she remembers the Accursed having, before he...stabbed her. 

His eyes stop somewhere on her legs. Her bare, exposed legs. She shifts, moving hands to cover...something. Wherever he’s looking at. An acute embarrassment swims through her veins.  

“Te laedi.” The quiet words cut through her stirring anger and embarrassment. A finger points at one of the blood stains running down her legs. The dried blood covering her legs, that she had forgotten about. Oh. Well, she supposes she does look like she’s suffering from a terrible injury. 

“Qui non nocere?”

“What?” Luna says, surprised by the question. Why would he care who hurt her?

The Accursed gestures to her bloodied up dress again, to the blood all over her legs. 

“Qui?” He repeats. 

She looks away.  _ You did,  _ lingers on the tip of her tongue. Instead she only shakes her head. Some questions are better not answered at all. 

“Feci eum?” The question is very, very quiet. Quiet enough that she strains to hear it.

_ Was it me?  _

She gapes at him. Well,  _ yes  _ but how did he come to that conclusion, if this was before everything?  _ How _ ? 

The Accursed’s hands dig into the ground. He lowers his head, grinding his teeth. And then, out of nowhere, tosses his head back and screams up at the rocky spikes far above. 

 

“ Ego mea culpa et mali fecerit!” The shouted phrase is both true and it is isn’t. Yes, Luna may remember this man hurting her, but that hasn’t happened yet as far as she can tell. For her but not for him. 

Ignoring every instinct screaming out to run, to get away from here, Luna rests her hand on his shoulder. What’s the right word, what is it again, mm, oh, there it is. “ _ Pax _ .” 

It’s hard not to shudder at feeling human flesh turn gooey and squishy under her fingertips. Even harder not to snatch her hand away, to flick the Scourge off her fingers before it’s too late. 

_ Probably too late already,  _ she mentally assures herself,  _ I have been poking at him this entire time without the proper precautions. Nothing I can do now.  _

_ Just me and a man and the Scourge. _

“Multa habeo tam nocere,” he says, more quietly. He gently pushes her hand off his shoulder and stands. Or, er,  _ attempts  _ to stand. 

His left leg fails to hold up his weight, causing him to stumble and fall. Right on top of Luna, still on the ground. 

“Ooof!”

He’s so very tall. But surprisingly light for his size. Just skin and bones, really. Luna grapples with him a bit, with the scarred gangly limbs sprawled all over the place making it difficult to get him off of her. She manages it, in the end, after having to stand up in the process. Slides him off of her onto the floor once more. 

 

He snarls at her, face all fangs and black tar. For a moment, it’s almost enough to frighten her. Almost. 

Lunafreya, however, has faced many a soul close to true transformation into a daemon. People who had growled at her, attempting to claw her with not yet formed claws or nibble her skin with nonexistent fangs. 

The Accursed will not frighten her, not like this. 

Give him a knife, on the other hand...she shudders, turning her thoughts forcibly to the task at the hand. To the Accursed currently sitting before her. He’s almost smaller, with her standing over him. 

The darkness in his face eventually fades away, consumed by an illusion of humanity. A frown directed at her. 

“Aera. Mea culpa.” 

She frowns at that. More apologies, to a person she doesn’t know. Shakes her head. “No, Luna.” She taps her chest. “I’m Luna.” 

The frown deepens. He tilts his head. “Luna?”

Luna nods. 

“Hm. Curiousus.” The Accursed splays a hand across his chest. Across the fading burn marks. He half-bows, more of a quick bob than anything else. “Ardyn Lucis Caelum.”

 

A Lucis Caelum. The Accursed is a  _ Lucis Caelum.  _

Luna sits down. Hard. Her legs almost collapse from underneath her. 

_ How?  _ More importantly, why hadn’t she  _ known this _ ? That seems a pretty  _ important  _ piece of information to know. Gentiana would have know, hosting the Glacian herself. 

Why hadn’t the Messenger told her this, let her know? 

_ Did you need to know, Lunafreya?  _

“Of course I did,” she says aloud, to no one in particular. To no audience but herself and her Gentiana-filled memories. “Why wouldn’t I need to know something so important?”

_ You’re not the Chosen King, Lunafreya,  _ those same memories seem to say in reply,  _ Only the Oracle.  _

_ Only the Oracle.  _

She brings her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. Her memory goes back to familiar blue eyes, to a face contorted in mourning. The only Lucis Caelum she has ever truly known. 

_ Oh, Noctis. _

“I’m sorry,” The words come out muffled, after she buries her face into her knees. Too late to matter, but the words still come out. 

She’s never going to see him again. Ever. Since she’s dead and all. 

The Accursed could be lying, of course. It would easier to assume that he is. But what reason would he have to lie to her? According to Gentiana, he wouldn’t need a reason, he would just do it. 

_ Was  _ he lying? 

At this point, did it really matter?

“Mea culpa,” she chokes out.  _ My fault.  _ There’s a hand on her shoulder, now. A cold, cold hand. 

Luna does nothing to shake it off, electing instead to start crying. And crying. Just a little bit, just quietly, but cry nonetheless. 

 

The floor is cold. So very cold. Colder than the hand on her shoulder, a hand that appears to be slowly warming up the longer it touches her. 

She should shake it off. 

Instead, she lets that hand sit there. Comforting her even though they’re enemies in the worst of ways. What does it mean, to seek comfort from your murderer?

What does it mean, when there is no one  _ but  _ your murderer to comfort you?


End file.
